This is an improvement over my U.S. Pat. No. 4,424,965 for "High Speed Transport System for Newspapers and the Like", issued Jan. 10, 1984. Therein, a newspaper carrying clamp assembly is disclosed having registration stops in the clamps for receiving and precisely aligning newspapers with exact interpaper spacings. Also mechanisms therein are provided for transfer of the newspapers between belt conveyors and clamps.
Also, other belt to clamp transfer systems are know, typically as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,333,559 to Walter Reist issued June 8, 1982.
However, these prior art systems have difficulty in processing newspapers reliably because of large variations in the number of sheets and weight occurring day to day. In particular, a Sunday newspaper edition may have a large number of pages and high weight as compared with a Tuesday edition. This is a particular problem whenever accelerators such as nip rollers are employed unless adjustments are provided for proper handling of varying thickness or weight.
Also, a satisfactory transfer problem is posed in fully registering a newspaper travelling along a conveyor belt against stops in a moving clamp. Thus, the papers if travelling too fast bounce away from the stops by hitting them too hard. Also papers with trailing edges resting on a conveyor belt may be dragged out of the clamps before they become fully closed by the weight of the paper dragging on the belt.
Thus, it is the object of this invention to provide a more reliable and less critical conveyance system operable to transfer printed articles such as newspapers which vary in weight and thickness from a moving belt into the jaws of a sequence of individual clamps moving in a path intercepting the leading edge of the newspapers.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be found throughout the following description, the drawing and the claims.